ROGERS CUP 2011 TORONTO: Francesca Schiavone won easily 6-1, 6-3 to Ekaterina Makarova in the beginning of Rogers Cup’s third day
Last night, it was the withdraw turn for Belgium Kim Clijsters, when she was winning Chinese Jie Zheng 6-3 and 2-1 in the second set. A stomach muscle tear did not allow the spectator pleasure to watch one of the strongest women in the WTA Tour, maybe for the last time (she is thinking of retirement after the 2012 Olympics or US Open next year. “During my warm up before the match, I just felt my left stomach muscle really, really tight, and when I started serving it just gradually got worse. So before the match, I got taped to try and protect the muscle as much as possible so that I wouldn’t make it worse. And during the match, it went worse and worse. Starts with the serve and then gradually, just doing rotations with my body, upper body kind of upwards, started hurting as well. So I already had an ultrasound here on-site and I have a partial tear in my left stomach muscle, a little bit of blood”.
- Kim, what does mean for the US Open? Have you ruled that out?
- “K.C.: “No, not yet. Obviously, I still have a few weeks until then, so we’ll try to do everything to be ready for the US Open. Would I play in Cincinnati? I will have a lot of treatment the next few days, do more tests, and I will just take it one day at a time”.
So, this Wednesday Francesca Schiavone took Centre Court instead of Li Na – Shuai Peng and won easily 6-1, 6-3 to Ekaterina Makarova in the beginning of Rogers Cup’s third day, in 1 hour and 1 minute. The Russian tried hard in the last games of the second set, but the Italian power was completely overwhelming for Makarova.
In the Grandstand court, Wimbledon champion 2011, Czech Petra Kvitova has to work hard, especially in the first set (7-6), to defeat Spaniard Anabel Medina Garrigues, winning the tie break, and then dominated the second set until rain delay was called and stopped temporarily 4-2 and 40-0 in her serve. Another country mate, Czech Lucie Safarova was also winning young Rumanian sensation Simona Halep (who early upset Kutnetzsova) 6-2 and 5-4.
In Montreal, Canadian rookie Vasek Pospisil was having a tied first set, 5-5 partial, against the best player ever, Swiss Roger Federer. But at the end, the former No.1 prevailed 7-5 in the 1st.
Even tough Serena Williams defeated easily Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko by 6-0, 6-3 last night and everyone expect that her Wednesday rival, Germany Julia Goerges, will suffer the same fate, the American wasn’t in the mood for smile or happy feelings last night:
- Serena, you talked about it last week or couple weeks ago when you won, you said it tonight, that you’re appreciating the game more; every match is so much fun. But you’re still not smiling an awful lot out there. How much fun is it? How much is still very, very serious?
- S.W.: “Well, it’s obviously really serious. I don’t know too many people that are smiling and winning. You know, I smile a lot off the court. I figure if I take a day and if I could try to be serious for a maximum of 3 or 4 hours, then, you know, I should be good. Sometimes when I smile too much, the you can lose focus”
Number one, Dane Caroline Wozniacki will start defending the Roger Cup title soon, after the rain stops, in a match with Italy's Roberta Vinci, who advanced to the second round with a solid 6-2, 6-2 victory over world No. 19 Yanina Wickmayer, but Wozniacki is a different kind of opponent, strong and more balanced, qualities that have her in top of WTA ranking for the whole year, even without winning a Grand Slam yet.
WTa Rankings
- 01Caroline Wozniacki9915
- 02Kim Clijsters7625
- 03Vera Zvonareva7045
- 04Victoria Azarenka6115
- 05Maria Sharapova5941
- 06Na Li5726
- 07Petra Kvitova5437
- 08Francesca Schiavone4831
- 09Marion Bartoli4425
- 10Andrea Petkovic3375
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